Are humans carnivores?
We are definitely omnivores adapted to eat both meat and vegetable. Our teeth have adaptations to both, but importantly the length of our gut is intermediate in length. Carnivores such as cats, have very short guts as meat is very easy to digest. Herbivores such as horses have very long guts as it takes a very long time and a lot of digestive work plus cellulose digesting bacteria to get nutrition out of a purely plant-based diet. Intermediate length guts such as those in humans and dogs for example allow for the partial digestion of plant material as well as meat. Most human populations which still live traditional lifestyles are hunter-gatherers hunting meat and gathering plants, so this mixed diet has been in place for some time.
